A friend and I have been discussing the difference between the Koran(/Book of Mormon/Dianetics/Science and Health with Keys to the Scriptures/Being and Nothingness/Enuma elish) and the Bible.
The big difference?
In the Bible God, the creator, is personally involved. Mankind is shown as being deeply connected to the person-ness that underpins, defines and sustains all reality. God is palpably there. He knows (us) and is knowable. He comes to us for our benefit even when we push him away. He enables us to understand our person-ness and its root in his own divine-(person)-ness.
From Genesis 1 the Bible unrolls the story of the connection between man and God, creature and creator in a great flow of historical meaning shown through God's actions and his encounters with those who reject him, reap the consequence of rejecting life, and can be finally regenerated to enjoy God forever. The great dynamic rent in history is the defining demonstration: the resurrection of the Christ, God amongst us.
God is ever present, personally available in commutative relationship with his creature (Genesis 1:27) and seeks his creature for that relationship (Genesis 3:8). Not because it would be good for him, but good for us!
God is deeply interested in and in fellowship with man. Throughout the entirety of the Bible.
In the other books I mention above God is a distant figure, a cipher, a place holder with no ontology, personality or passion. They leave us in the existential mess resulting form our living in opposition to God, a mess made worse and not better by the 'gods' of the witch doctors and charlatans who composed these books without knowledge, but full of excuses. More, they leave us adrift and without hope, or without hope as persons. They all deny the base reality we reflect of God: person-ness and connection.
The scriptures address man in his existential and spiritual condition and meet it by the supreme relationship with God who regenerates us for our eternal delight in him that bubbles out in worship, praise and thankfulness.
What is the Bible? Why read it? It is the greatest love story: of the creator who seeks his broken and rebellious creature in his (our) mad pursuit of death and not life, who puts pride before humility and bluster before knowledge, but who is turned from spiritual poverty to the riches of adoption by the creator, now our Father in Heaven.
There is person-hood and relationship throughout the Bible. It is not a book of rules, but is the genealogy of new life set out by the one who gives it and who shows that he gives it, by showing the facets of the relationship culminating in the supreme demonstration of victory of that which defeats us: death.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.